


Never Been a Colder Winter

by unbelieve



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, T is for swearing, but with undertones, like it's not onscreen but I felt like I should put it as major character death anyway?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbelieve/pseuds/unbelieve
Summary: It doesn't matter if they knew knew the unthinkable was coming. It's unthinkable for a reason, and Sokka's in a place that Suki can't reach, but she'll try anyway. It's what they do for each other.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (one sided), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)
Kudos: 25





	Never Been a Colder Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Austin P. McKenzie's "Winter."

Suki finds out from Katara over text at the end of the school day and it stops her dead in the hallway, the other students pushing past her as she reads and rereads the message. There’s only two words on the screen and no other way to interpret them, but it doesn’t stop her from spending a full minute trying to convince herself it’s just her dyslexia acting up. 

That doesn’t make sense, sure, but it’s better than the reality.

“Where’s Sokka?” she texts back.

“Home. Dad pulled him out of school.”

Suki changes routes, headed halfway across the city instead of home to the pile of assignments now forgotten in her bag, a paper to write that doesn’t matter now and maybe never will again. She opens her text thread with Sokka four separate times and closes it just as many, feeling like she should say something but not sure what, ice in her limbs and in her brain that has nothing to do with the cold outside.

This deep into December, it’s already getting dark by the time she arrives. Katara lets her in when she knocks, and they don’t speak. There’s a look and a nod that pass between them, nothing more. There are no words to say that won’t sound empty. Suki passes her and heads to Sokka’s room, the same route she’s traced for the five years they’ve been friends. She finds him sitting on the edge of his bed in the failing light, back to the door, and he doesn’t look up when she comes around to sit next to him. 

After a moment, she says, “Hey,” just softly.

“Hey,” he says back, and even that one word sounds so heavy. After a moment, he asks, “Katara texted you?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry, I would’ve, just…”

“It’s okay.” 

He doesn’t look away from the floor, stiller than she’s ever seen him, perpetual motion stalled in its tracks. “It doesn’t feel real.”

Suki doesn’t know what to say to that, not really. “I think that’s normal, I guess.”

“Maybe it would feel real if I’d… been there, you know? And I feel bad that I wasn’t, but I just- fuck. I don’t know.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” It’s the wrong thing to say, she knows that as soon as it leaves her lips. 

“I know that!” Sokka snaps, then drops his head into his hands, scrubbing at his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean- it’s stupid to think anything would’ve been different if I was there, it’s not like it would’ve changed what happened, but at least I would’ve been there for her.”

“She knew how much you loved her.” Anyone who’d ever seen them could’ve known that, could’ve seen the way they nearly glowed in each other’s presence, and Suki has had a front-row seat to it for the last year. 

She’d been afraid she’d lose him once he started dating Yue, that the stars in his eyes every time Yue was around would blind him to anyone that wasn’t her. She almost would’ve understood it, too, because Yue was gorgeous, and genuinely, passionately kind, and had a little bit of a rebellious streak that Suki had adored the moment she found out about it. Suki could’ve been in love with her too, honestly, if the timing had been right, but the timing hadn’t been right and Suki was already in love with her best friend. Sokka hadn’t forgotten her friendship, though, and Yue had offered hers, and if there was any jealousy in the equilibrium they’d found, it didn’t matter now.

Yue was beautiful and lovely and now she's gone, and the only thing heavy in Suki's chest is loss. Anything else she’s ever felt is secondary, because right now Sokka needs her to be his best friend, and that's a thing she can do. 

“I don’t know if it was… enough, you know?” he says, and for once she doesn’t.

“What do you mean?”

When he says, "I don't really know," it doesn't feel like a lie, it feels like he’s found the point at which everything is so tangled up inside of you that you're not sure what the truth could even be anymore. Suki's familiar with the feeling. It's not a good one, and she wants so badly to be able to take it away from him. 

“Nobody else could’ve loved her as much as you did.”

“I really tried.”

And she knows, she does, because she knows the way Sokka loves everyone he cares about, completely and fiercely. In the same breath, she knows that in the silence that follows he’s thinking about all the times he ever failed, was ever anything less than a perfect boyfriend. 

Almost automatically, she says, “Stop that.”

“What?” he says, either genuinely caught off guard or doing a good job of faking it.

“Stop feeling bad about yourself.”

“I wasn’t.”

“If you say so.” Suki doesn't believe him, and Sokka has to know she doesn't believe him, but she lets him have this. It's a delicate balance with him, always, trying not to push too far, and right now he’s both the detonator and the finger on the button, a second away from self-destruction. 

Sokka just shrugs, the gesture so half-hearted she feels it against her shoulder more than she sees it. After a long moment, he says, “I feel bad, I know she was your friend too, and I’m just-“

“It’s okay,” she interrupts. It’ll hurt later, when she’s alone. She’ll be fine until she isn’t, and the full scope of the loss will knock her breathless, leave her so angry she wants nothing more than to scream or break something, but for now it’s easier to focus on this boy with the heart ripped out of him. “Probably a stupid question, but is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not really. No offense.” 

“Okay. You know I’m always here.”

They sit in the dying light for a while longer without speaking, and it’s not until his breath catches in his throat that she realizes he’s crying. 

The angle is awkward and there’s a moment where she nearly unbalances herself, but she reaches over and hugs him as tight as she can. He turns just a little, trying not to look at her, and it's stupid because it's not like they haven't both seen each other in their worst moments before, but she understands. Sometimes it’s too much all at once, to cry and to be seen crying. 

Time slips on without meaning while they sit there, half-anchored and mostly drifting, but eventually Sokka sniffles and pulls away, swiping a hand across his eyes. “How late can you stay? I don’t wanna keep you from going home if you’ve got shit to do.”

And Suki does have things to do, knows she should probably get up and go home, but she can’t shake the fear that the moment she looks away, he’ll fall apart. Instead she just says, “I can stay as long as you need me to.”

**Author's Note:**

> on god i'm trying to write some things that aren't sad so stay tuned I suppose. if you comment i'll pledge fealty to you. follow me on tumblr at jothzuko.


End file.
